Clovis shrugs and lowers her head in modesty. ‘They say I have … I am too embarrassed to say, matron.’
‘The gift?’ Matron’s eyes bulge.
‘I would never claim … No, I would never even think it.’
The matron, quite in the dark as to the new prisoner’s real character, and quite awed by her, vows to pardon all her offences should she commit any under her guard.
There is a clandestine agreement at Millbank Penitentiary in which all are complicit. There are many reasons to secrete the Fowlers away from the regular wards and onto B Ward, Pentagon No. 4. Not the least of these is the bothersome fact of their fame. It is, however, something entirely more bewitching that instigates their complete seclusion.
It begins their first night. In each cell a small, barred window set high in the wall looks out onto the pentagon yards. At dusk a warder arrives with a lamp to light the small gas jets in each cell. When the chimes in the clock tower of Westminster Palace fill the quiet, the lights of the Millbank cells adopt the semblance of the sacred in the inky night.
In their separate cells, each of the four new prisoners takes down the wooden plank that stands against the wall and secures it on the raised wooden platform extending across the length of the cell. Upon it they place a hard mattress that forms their bed, and then a coarse linen sheet. There are no pillows.
Whether the prisoner is at work or sleep, the warders and matrons have full view of them in their cells through a slit in the wall alongside the door. In Pentagon No. 2 Jonesy hears heavy boots approaching and catches a glimpse of the shiny key box that protrudes from the warder’s hip. The warder pauses in front of his cell. He is a green one from the countryside, new to London, and this is his first encounter with a Chinaman. He lingers at the door to observe Jonesy sitting on the edge of his bed with his head in his hands. The warder has a perfect view of the shaved portion of the prisoner’s head, just above his temples, which forms the traditional style of his people. Jonesy’s braid was hacked off upon arrival with a swift snip of the prison’s scissors, leaving a mass of silky, black clumps. The gossip from the reception room is that he bore his shame well. The young warder, blond and pale, is curious. Jonesy lifts his head and resists the urge to call out to him that he feels light-headed.
Upstairs, in a different ward, Finn collapses on top of his messy half-made bed, dizzy from the spinning room. When his warder looks through the slit he is of course curious, as anyone would be to see a Lazarus in person, but he jumps back. Struck by the vision of Finn’s neck fully displayed, bruised in an array of colours, the warder cannot recall anything quite as ugly, and he has seen ugly in his career. He moves on without disturbing him. A reprimand for his untidy bed can be delayed until tomorrow.
In the women’s pentagon, Clovis begins to feel unsteady as she smooths the rough blanket. Certain it stems from her first encounter with the evening gruel, she begins to undress. Willa, too, suffers from a wave of nausea in her cell as small beads of perspiration form a line across her upper lip.
From a room in the building at the centre of the six pentagons, situated like the hub of a wheel, the governor, along with any other staff allowed, is able to survey the entire prison. Each cell can be monitored at any time of day or night. One of the officers claims it is similar to peering into an absurd doll’s house, looking down into the various rooms, one thousand and thirty of them, from a tall tower.
Four cells, four new prisoners, all of the same household, occupy different wards on their first night at Millbank. A chief officer will recall that on this night, he noticed nothing unusual before the lights were extinguished.
The next morning at six o’clock, the bell that is loud enough to wake all of Pimlico and Westminster sounds for the prisoners to rise. Finn, Jonesy, Clovis and Willa stay fast asleep.
‘Oh no you don’t!’ shouts the warder. ‘This is no way to begin your time with me.’ He bends down to yell into Finn’s ear. ‘Get your arse up, 1090.’
Nothing. No response at all.
Another officer on the floor below, not the pale blond, but a brawny, older man, throws open the doors, grabs Jonesy’s signal stick and pokes him with it.
‘1091!’ The warder yells like a siren. ‘Up, up, I say!’
Jonesy remains as motionless as a corpse.
In the female pentagon, the iron gate of Clovis’s cell stands wide open, as does the wooden door. The matrons of her ward stand in a gaggle around her bed.
‘What should we do?’ says one.
‘Send for the doctor.’ The chief matron, usually annoyed and quick to throw punishment, is clearly concerned. The prisoner is not dead, but does not respond to a pinch, a flick of cold water, or a slap in the face.
On the floor above, in Ward C, a young matron new to Millbank shakes Willa in a violent panic, worried that the girl has died during the night.
Two weeks pass. Millbank pulses with rumour. The inmates whisper that the Fowlers and their servants have been poisoned. The warders and matrons gossip from ward to ward, from pentagon to pentagon, until there are so many different versions of what befell the sleeping prisoners that the entire Millbank population is perched on a nervous, excited edge. The power of the stories breaks the monotony of their days and nights. Wagers are placed on whether they will awaken or die.
On the fifteenth day, Clovis opens her eyes to find herself in a large room. Her gaze fixes on blue, checked curtains and she
